Japan Iron & Stee Federation (JISF) chairman Eiji Hashimoto expressed his regret on hearing Thailand’s decision to maintain its anti-dumping duties on Japan’s hot rolled coils and sheets exports after concluding its third sunset review, commenting on June 9 that the decision was unjust.
On June 8, the Thai authorities announced to continue imposing AD duties of up to 36.25% on Japanese HRCs and sheets, effective on June 9, after completing the third sunset review that commenced in May 2020, though in the first six months, the AD duties will be zero because of the negative impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the global economy and Thailand.
Hashimoto was quoted in the JISF statement that the Japanese steel industry will carefully study this decision, and will take an appropriate course of action after having a discussion with the Japanese government officials.
The AD duties have been in place since 2003 and including 14 countries and areas such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and India, and the products are under the HS codes of 7208, 7211.13, 7211.14, and 7211.19, though base feeds for tinplate and those to be re-rolled into cold-rolled flats for the automobiles and electronics industries are exempt, Mysteel Global learns.
A JISF official shared that Japan had strongly argued during the sunset review that its exports had not been a threat to the steel producers in Thailand, as they had been mostly rolled into cold-rolled products for auto or electronics manufacturing.
He added that, “actual impact on Japan’s exports of such products may be very small, but we are still strongly against the decision, as it has been ongoing for 18 years when market has changed so much that it should have been abolished.”
In 2020, Japan exported about 1.21 million tonnes of the products in question in total, or down 31.5% on year, according to the data by Trade Statistics of Japan.
Written by Yoko Manabe, yoko.manabe@mysteel.com
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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